Thursday, July 17, 2014

More than 80 high-level experts in electronic governance from 20 countries participated in the 5th International Samos Summit on "ICT-enabled Governance ", held on 30 June to 2 July 2014, at the Doryssa Hotel, in Samos, Greece.

The Summit was held under the auspices of the European Commission, the Greek Parliament, the Greek Ministry of Administrative Reform and e-Government, and was organized by the University of the Aegean / Department of Information and Communication Systems, with the support of the international research projects SHARE-PSI 2.0 (open data standardisation) , EU-COMMUNITY (global systems science), NOMAD (dynamic creation of policy from society) and ENGAGE (public data for scientific communities).

The key issues for this year’s summit was Open Data, powered by the SHARE PSI 2.0 project and Global Systems Science, an attempt to enable policy makers with scientific method and tools for evidence-based decision making.

The Summit also discussed the new approaches and guidelines for internet technologies in the context of the Digital Agenda 2020 and the new HORIZON 2020 framework for research and development in the European Union. More than 15 international research projects presented their proposals for new electronic services and tools for policymakers, citizen participation in decision making, open governance and effective management through open data initiatives at national and local level, including the CONSENSUS, e-POLICY, e-GOVPOLINET, GEN6 , PERIKLIS and POLICY COMPASS projects.

Participants of the summit included representatives of the European Commission, the Greek Parliament, European Institutions, Universities and Research Projects, and executives of international companies and IT organizations, among which W3C, PWC, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, Intrasoft International and Athens Technology Center.

The involvement of the younger generation of scientists took place through the organization of the 2nd Summer School on “Open and Collaborative Governance”, involving researchers and students from around the world with interest in the field of eGovernment, providing them the opportunity to interact with internationally renowned academics, researchers and entrepreneurs. The summer school was organized by the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering University of the Aegean, in collaboration with the University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, and the Research Institute Mario Boela - ISMB, Turin.

Phil Archer, W3C Data Activity Lead and coordinator of the SHARE-PSI 2.0 project on open data standardization, said: “This year in Samos we achieved a fruitful exchange of international practices on Open Data. That was the 1st international workshop of SHARE PSI 2.0 project that brings together more than 40 organisations from almost every European member-state and beyond. We hope to show how the sharing of Public Sector information sharing increases the efficiency of public administrations and aids evidence-based decision making.”